Service

Cost Focused Provisional Patent Apps. (cPPA)

Need to either buy time to raise funds? Need to disclose your idea to a 3rd party and need protection?  Or, maybe you need to do some market testing of your idea before investing in a regular (Utility) patent application?  Then, the below cost-focused Provisional Patent Application services will enable you to at least adequately cover the core of your product and/or service idea until you are ready to file the regular patent application within the one year allowed.  If your budget is very tight, yet better patent strength and scope is still important to you, then the "Drafting Basic Plus" level is highly recommended.

Provisional Patent Application Drafting Basic, Plus

This level of services is the same as the "Draft Basic" below plus it further includes a broad claim and greater patent scope/strength provisions, which better support the future Utility Patent strength and are required to preserve your International patent rights because many countries do not respect a Provisional Patent Application filing without at least a broad claim.

Provisional Patent Application Drafting Basic

For inventors who want a legal professional to legally draft their Provisional Patent Application at a relatively low cost, and are not too concerned about patent scope or preserving there International patent rights, yet want their Provisional Patent Application to at least cover their core product/service idea and include basic legal “best practices.”

About Our Provisional Patent Application (PPA) Practice

There are some good reasons to file a Provisional Patent Application, however, it is not always a good idea.  To better acquaint yourself with Provisional Patent Application characteristics and considerations, you may want to review our FAQ on our Provisional Patent Application services and our overview on provisional applications before proceeding.

It is imperative to understand that although a Provisional Patent Application may written very informally (e.g., "cutting corners) to cut costs, if the Provisional Patent Application does not satisfy the multitude of “best practices” and legal requirements, you can easily lose some or all of your future patent protection rights.  Understandably, many small business and independent inventors have an economic incentive to file a Provisional Patent Application to attain presumed “Patent-Pending” legal protection while determining the invention’s market value before investing in the cost of a full non-provisional, Utility patent application.  

Bay Area IP recognizes that individual and small business inventors sometimes need a very affordable provisional “Patent-Pending” protection mechanism that they can use to either buy time to raise funds or for market testing their invention before investing in a non-provisional, Utility patent application.  Yet, other situation will have sufficient budget to procure a high quality Provisional Patent Application to protect a potentially seminal idea(s).  That is why we offer two categories of service- the first is our quality oriented provisional application service, which serves clients who wish to have a relatively good quality follow-on non-provisional, Utility patent application, and the other category is our cost-focused Provisional Patent Application practice, described in some detail below.

When it comes to getting provisional "Patent Pending" all provisional patent application services are NOT created equal.  Independent inventors, especially, should not be fooled to believe that Provisional Patent Application do not have the same quality or legal requirements than do full non-provisional, Utility patent applications.  If your Provisional Patent Application is legally or technically insufficient, for any reason it cannot be corrected after filing.  That is because, by law, no new information may added to Provisional Patent Applications; hence, any defects in the Provisional Patent Application will automatically be inherited into the non-provisional, Utility patent application.  In this way, if you have low quality Provisional Patent Application you likely will have a crippled or worthless corresponding non-provisional, Utility patent application.  Thus, not be you not only lose any patent protection you thought you had, yet, even worse, you will be barred from ever patenting your invention (Internationally as well) if it was ever publicly used or disclosed– a high risk to take just to avoid some relatively small upfront expenses.  This is why you should always procure the highest level of quality that you can afford.

This cost-focused category of provisional patent services below provides an ideal vehicle for the independent inventors who are more concerned about attaining a quick “Patent-Pending” status at very low cost so they can buy time to raise funds for a or test market their invention to determine its value before investing significant funds. 

Provisional Patent Application Drafting Basic- Plus

If cost is your most important constraint, yet you want to at least adequately cover the main aspects of your idea product and/or service, then the Basic Quality "Drafting Basic Plus" is highly recommended.  In this level of service you provide us a clear disclosure according to our instruction, we legally draft your Provisional Patent Application it to satisfy minimum legal requirements and implement basic legal safeguards. This level of services is the same as the "Draft Basic" below plus it further includes a broad claim and greater patent scope/strength provisions, which better support the future Utility Patent strength and is required to preserves your International patent rights because many countries do not respect a Provisional Patent Application filing without at least a broad claim. This is a good compromise between cost (e.g., "Drafting Basic" Provisional Patent Application) and quality (e.g., the "Good Quality" Provisional Patent Application).

Result:  Likely an OK quality non-provisional, Utility patent application, and you defer up to 80% in normal costs (depending on invention complexity) to the non-provisional, Utility patent application. This work generally proceeds as follows:

Order the Provisional Patent Application Drafting Basic- Plus

Provisional Patent Application Drafting Basic

For inventors who want a legal professional to legally draft their Provisional Patent Application at a relatively low cost, and are not too concerned about patent scope or preserving there International patent rights, yet want their Provisional Patent Application to at least cover their core product/service idea and include basic legal “best practices.” 

Key features includes the following:

• We provide you instructions on how to put together your Invention Description submission.
• We will take your clear invention disclosure, whether by way of an Invention Disclosure Form or your clear invention description, and prepare a Provisional Patent Application that not only satisfies the minimum legal requirements, but includes basic legal safeguards that provide significantly better quality support for a later filed utility patent application, which translates to stronger patent protection from any resulting patent issued.
• Within about 2 weeks after receiving your clear Invention Disclosure and payment we will deliver to you by secure email or floppy disk a Provisional Patent Application suitable for filing with the US Patent Office.
• You then make any changes necessary to make the draft Provisional Patent Application technically accurate, and deliver the final version
• File your application electronically with the Patent Office.

How to Engage our Services

1)     Configure the above shopping cart options (if any) according to what best fits your situation, goals, and/or budget.   (you may always edit your cart to make any changes- see below for details)

a)     The service item may have a text entry field named "Please provide any Special Instructions...", where you should enter any specific guidance or information that may be helpful for us to properly process your order (e.g., any case number we've assigned, deadline situations, how this order relates to any other orders, etc.)

b)     The service item configuration total price will be reflected in the "Selected Combination Total" line item below any options menus.  Likewise, the "Service ID" will be updated to encode your configuration selections.

2)     Click the "select service" button to put the service item you configured into your shopping cart. You will notice shopping cart at the top right of the page, which indicates how many items it currently contains. Click that shopping cart icon anytime you want to see what items are in your shopping cart, and you'll notice a pencil icon on each item which enables you to go back and edit the item, and save your edits by again clicking the "select service" button.

3)     Click the "Checkout" button to begin the checkout process.  On the Checkout page, enter your email address, client status, and PoC information for the legal service you are ordering. Then click the “next intake page” button to proceed to the payment indication page.

4)     Make your payment off-line (i.e., not through our website) using one of the methods specified in the postscript of quoting email. Currently, online payment methods through our website are not implemented yet.

5)     After you made your payment off-line, return to the above payment page on our website where you will specify how much you paid, by what means, and some kind of transaction receipt/info for us to research and match it up to your order to approve it.

a)     NOTE: Most of our services require 100% prepayment of the quoted fee; however, if our emailed written quote indicates a lesser prepayment amount then instead of our standard full prepayment policy for reduced fixed-fee work, you can take advantage of a reduced minimum down payment fee (e.g., 50% of the quoted fixed-fee, plus any rush fee quoted) to start patent work on each case. The remaining fees are later due at least upon our completing the 1st draft of the ordered legal service for your review/revision and/or our filing.

b)     If you paid using methods like PayPal/Zelle/check/money order/bank wire/bank deposit/ etc., then during the above linked checkout process select the "off-line" payment option, which will ask you for which "off-line" payment means you use and a copy of the transaction information so that we may manually confirm and process it to credit it to your account.

6)     After you register your payment per the above, our system will guide you to our online new case intake forms to gather your administrative information for this new patent case (e.g., POC, contacts, inventors, assignees, work request details, service agreement, etc.).

7)     You will be emailed a link to proceed to our secure client portal dashboard to securely submit your materials, documents and instructions for our legal work.

8)     Our team reviews all your submissions and works with you to validate/improve anything needed for us to properly do our legal work.

Of course, if you have any questions not yet answered, or otherwise require any help, please do not hesitate to contact us. We will happily assist you.